Modulo A

“Teoria e critica letteraria comparata negli USA”

Studio comparativo di alcuni fra i principali approcci metodologici e delle teorie della critica letteraria contemporanea così come professate nei corsi di studio superiori statunitensi.



Modulo B

“Hoax, Fake News e Post-verità fra scienza, storia, (auto-)biografia e informazione”

Falsari letterari fra xxviii e xx secolo (Benjamin Franklin, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Clifford Irving) e post-verità fra xx e xxi secolo (Alain Sokal e l’affare Sokal al quadrato).

► Modulo A

1) Peter Barry, Beginning Theory. An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory (4th edition), Manchester and New York, Manchester University Press, 2017.



2) Un libro, a scelta, fra i seguenti (in lingua originale o in traduzione):

Roland Barthes, S/Z. Paris, Seuils, 1970; Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics New York, Routledge, 1975; Harold Bloom, Paul De Man, Jacques Derrida, Geoffrey Hartmann, J. Hillis Miller, Deconstruction and Criticism, New York, Seabury Press, 1979; Gérard Genette, Seuils, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1987; Terry Eagleton, The Ideology of Aesthetics, New York, Routledge, 1990; Shoshana Feldman, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History, New York, Routledge, 1992; Brian McHale, Postmodernist Fiction, New York, Routledge, 1996; Annamarie Jagose, Queer Theory; An Introduction, New York, New York University Press, 1996; Catherine Gallagher, Stephen Greenblatt, Practicing the New Historicism, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2000; Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, New York, Rootledge, 2005; Ellen Rooney (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Literary Theory, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2006; Greg Garrard, Ecocriticism, New York, Routledge, 2011; Joni Adamson, William A. Gleason, David N. Pellow, Keywords for Environmental Studies, New York, New York University Press, 2016.



► Modulo B

Fonti primarie

Una libera scelta di testi (almeno tre per ciascun autore, salvo che per Irving Sokal e Wilson, di cui si studierà solo un testo) fra quelli indicati di seguito:



Benjamin Franklin

“The Silence Dogood Letters” (1722); “A Witch Trial at Mount Holly” (1730); “The Death of Titan Leeds” (1733); “The Speech of Miss Polly Baker” (1747); “The Electric Kite” (1752); “A Letter to a Royal Academy” (1781); “Supplement to the Boston Independent Chronicle” (1782).



Edgar Allan Poe

“The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Phaall” (1835); “Maelzel’s Chess-Player” (1836); “The Balloon Hoax” (1844); “Mesmeric Revelation” (1844); “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” (1845); “Von Kempelen and His Discovery” (1849).



Mark Twain

“The Petrified Man” (1862); “A Bloody Massacre Near Carson” (1863); “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” (1865); “A Touching Story of George Washington’s Boyhood” (1867); 1601. Conversation, as it was by the Social Fireside, in the Time of the Tudors. (1880); A Double-Barrelled Detective Story, cap. IV, “Incipit” (1901); “The Jumping Frog: In English, then in French, then Clawed Back into a Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unremunerated Toil” (1903).



Clifford Irving

Autobiograhy of Howard Hughes (New York, McGraw-Hill 1972 (volume mandato al macero, nella edizione diffusa in .pdf dall’autore, 20062); The Hoax, New York, Permanent Press, 1981.



Alain Sokal, “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics”, Social Text, 46/47, Spring/Summer 1996, pp. 217-252:

https://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html



Helen Wilson, “Human Reactions to Rape Culture and Queer Performativity at Urban Dog Parks in Portland, Oregon”, Gender Place & Culture, 22 May 2018 (articolo successivamente ritirato dalla pubblicazione dopo l’annuncio pubblico che trattavasi di hoax):

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1cJLr_o04R-zpHcMNaIWPGs7Ue_i-tkCw



Fonti secondarie

È obbligatorio lo studio dei seguenti articoli e saggi critici:



Sui “falsi letterari” (Literary Hoax) | B. McHale, “‘A Poet May Not Exist’: Mock-Hoaxes and the Construction of National Identity”, in The Faces of Anonymity: Anonymous and Pseudonymous Publication from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century, ed. by R.J. Griffin, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. 233-252; L. Rosson, “Brian McHale’s Literary Hoaxes”, The Busybody, November 1, 2005:

https://rossonl.wordpress.com/2005/11/01/brian-mchale-on-literary-hoaxes/



Su Franklin | G. Del Guercio, “How Benjamin Franklin’s Dream Came True. The Origins of the American’s Dream in His Autobiography”, Varsity Tutors:

https://www.varsitytutors.com/earlyamerica/early-america-review/volume-14/franklins-american-dream

J. Weinberger, “Benjamin Franklin and Fake News”, Hudson Institute, December 12, 2016:

https://www.hudson.org/research/13133-benjamin-franklin-and-fake-news



Su Poe | T. Whalen, “Poe and the American Publishing Industry”, in A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe, ed. J. G. Kennedy, Oxford and New York, OUP, 2001, pp. 63-93; L. Walsh, “Poe’s Hoaxing and the Construction of Readerships”, in Sins Against Science. The Scientific Media Hoaxes of Poe, Twain, and Others, New York, State University of New York Press, 2006. pp. 51-119.



Su Mark Twain | B. Michelson, “Mark Twain and the Escape from Sense”, in Mark Twain on the Loose. A Comic Writer and the American Self, Amherst, University of Massachissets Press, 1995, pp. 1-37; L. Walsh, “Mark Twain and the Social Mechanics of Laughter”, in Sins Against Science. The Scientific Media Hoaxes of Poe, Twain, and Others, cit., pp. 121-171.



Su Irving | K. Young, “Spruce Goose”, in Bunk. The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists. Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News, Minneapolis, Gray Wolf, 2017, pp. 253-270; W. Grimes, “Clifford Irving, Author of a Notorious Literary Hoax, Dies at 87”, New York Times, December 20, 2017:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/obituaries/clifford-irving-author-of-a-notorious-literary-hoax-dies-at-87.html



Su Sokal | Peter Barry, “The Sokal Affair”, in Beginning Theory, cit..



Sull’affare Sokal al quadrato | Yascha Mounk, “What An Audacious Hoax Reveals About Academia”, The Atlantic, October 5, 2018:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/new-sokal-hoax/572212/

Zak Beauchamp, “The Controversy around hoax studies in critical theory, explained”, Vox, October 15, 2018:

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/15/17951492/grievance-studies-sokal-squared-hoax



► Letture integrative

Chi non avesse familiarità con la storia della letteratura americana, chi non frequenta, o chi volesse saperne di più, troverà dettagliate informazioni sugli autori ai seguenti link (le letture sono facoltative):



The Papers of Benjamin Franklin

https://franklinpapers.org/



The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore

https://www.eapoe.org/index.htm



“Mark Twain”, Enciclopædia Britannica

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mark-Twain



K. Kipling, “Behind the Fake: An Interview with Author Clifford Irving”, Sarasota Magazine, May 30, 2014:

https://www.sarasotamagazine.com/arts-and-entertainment/2014/05/behind-fake-interview-author-clifford-irving



Extra

A chi volesse saperne di più è consigliata, ancorché non obbligatoria, la lettura e la visione dei seguenti saggi, opere di nonfiction e film, nonché del sito web dedicato alla letteratura anglo-americana a cura di Donna Campbell:



Letteratura angloamericana:

D. Campbell, Brief Timeline of American Literature and Events: Pre-1620 to

1920. http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/



Film con e su/Libri di Clifford Irving

Clifford Irving, Fake! The Story of Elmyr de Hory, the Greatest Art Forger of Our Time, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1969.

Orson Welles, F For Fake! (1973)

Lasse Hallström, The Hoax (2006).



La hoax di Alain Sokal

B. Robbins, A. Ross, “Editorial Response to Sokal’s Hoax by the Editors of Social Texts” https://physics.nyu.edu/sokal/SocialText_reply_LF.pdf



L’affare Sokal al quadrato

Grievance Studies

https://peterboghossian.com/grievance-studies

The Squared Sokal Papers

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19tBy_fVlYIHTxxjuVMFxh4pqLHM_en18



Accesso online alle fonti

Nei limiti consentiti dal fair use, i testi saranno resi disponibili in formato .pdf su Studium.



Nota sul copyright

Si ricorda che, ai sensi dell’art. 171 della legge 22 aprile 1941, n. 633 e successive disposizioni, fotocopiare libri in commercio, in misura superiore al 15% del volume o del fascicolo di rivista, è reato penale.

Per ulteriori informazioni sui vincoli e sulle sanzioni all’uso illecito di fotocopie, è possibile consultare le Linee guida sulla gestione dei diritti d’autore nelle università (a cura della Associazione Italiana per i Diritti di Riproduzione delle opere dell’ingegno – AIDRO). I testi di riferimento possono essere consultati in Biblioteca.